


Mission: Highly Improbable

by itslikegodspilledaperson



Series: The Edison/Winger Chronicles [3]
Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Study Group
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-20
Updated: 2015-03-31
Packaged: 2018-03-18 19:08:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3580620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itslikegodspilledaperson/pseuds/itslikegodspilledaperson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Part 3 of my continuing series, the Edison/Winger Chronicles.  It's Annie and Jeff's wedding day, and there's a surprise waiting for Annie that has been months in the works.  Not as much Jeff/Annie interaction in this one, but the plot revolves around Jeff and the gang working on this "top secret" mission for his and Annie's wedding.</p><p>Guest Appearances: </p><p>Lynda Carter (Wonder Woman, Dukes of Hazzard) as Annie's Mother.<br/>Gary Sinise (Forrest Gump, CSI: NY) as Annie's Father.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Wedding (Introduction)

**Author's Note:**

> Part 1 of the Edison/Winger Chronicles right here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/3523049
> 
> Part 2 here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/3534848
> 
> Unrelated non-canon Fic, "Knockout" here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/3570626

Fitting it should take place here, he thought. Just two and a half years earlier, this park had posed as a memorial for the worst day of his life. Jeff had been cornered into admitting his secret for opening the door to Borchert’s lab in this very place. When he revealed his secret, that his love for Annie had opened it, his best friends, Annie included, did not believe it. They thought he was lying to get out of being a Britta guinea pig. He left, mortified, and drove out to the empty condo of a sleazy former client and drank himself to the brink for two weeks. He thought his life was over. 

On the contrary, this was actually the place where it all turned around for him and Annie. Because when he finally did arrive home, she found him passed out drunk in his apartment, and took care of him. She admitted she loved him too after he spilled his guts, and thus began the rest of his life. Maybe, he thought as he looked back, maybe this park had been the push he needed. Maybe he never would have admitted he loved Annie if their friends hadn’t prodded him into telling them. It seemed plausible. So yes, it was fitting that the wedding was here. 

Britta had planned the whole thing, and unsurprisingly, she had knocked it out of the park. While working on her master’s degree in Psychotherapy from the University of Denver, Britta had done some moonlighting as a wedding planner for small ceremonies like this. “Might as well make some money off the suckers who think I’m good at this,” she reasoned. 

There was a tiny wedding stage, facing roughly 200 chairs with an aisle down the middle. White was the main color, but blues, yellows, and other colors were mixed in via floral arrangements and ribbons. And while Britta was very good at wedding planning, she also had a lot to go off of. Annie’s wedding planner, a book almost as wide as it was long, had enough ideas to plan matrimonies for the whole state of Colorado ten times over. She’d told him that she had started jotting down ideas when she was 5. That’s 20 years of material that Britta had to sift through. Once again, props to Britta though because even though Annie had planned out everything to the letter, Britta still managed to put her own personal flair on it somehow. He was lucky to have two such amazing women in his life. 

He sat at a table with a few others behind the stage, the wedding still roughly a half hour away. Next to him was Duncan; a solid choice as best man. A, because it meant Jeff didn’t have to choose between Troy and Abed, B, because they’d been drinking buddies for the better part of a decade, but most importantly, C because If it weren’t for Duncan, he never would have attended Greendale. He never would have met Annie. And that alone was reason enough. 

Abed and Troy did make the cut as groomsmen though, and they were digging the tuxedos just as much as he thought they would. When they’d arrived earlier, they’d walked up slow motion with sunglasses and a boom box, blasting the theme from Kill Bill as Garrett released pigeons behind them. How those two got their hands on pigeons and how they managed to pay for said pigeons was a question best left unasked, Jeff concluded. 

Beginning to pour into the seats were his friends, family, and classmates. A few of his less douchey lawyer buddies from his old days, including Mark, were there too. Guys like Alan fortunately did not make the cut. His mother sat in the front row, Annie’s mother on the other side of the aisle also in the front. And the best was yet to come.  
Obviously the wedding was going to be great, but he wasn’t thinking about that. He was thinking about the surprise waiting for Annie behind the seats. There were two fully covered tents set up behind them, one was Annie’s bridal tent and the other was general purpose. In the general purpose sat the surprise. And it was a surprise that was months in the works.


	2. The Briefing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Britta finds something peculiar in about Annie's childhood while going through Annie's wedding planner. She enlists Jeff and Abed to help find out more, but their sudden disappearance tips Annie off and she grows suspicious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for just posting the intro! Tried posting Ch. 2 earlier but AO3 was going through site maintenance.

It had all started the week after the proposal. He and Annie were hanging at her place, watching Star Wars with Abed and when his phone rang. It was a Greendale area code, but the number was unfamiliar. 

“Who is this?”

The voice on the other end was obviously Britta’s, but she was doing her best to deepen it as a disguise.

“Say your mom is on the phone.”

“What?”

“This is important, just trust me.”

Jeff furrowed his brow, confused by Britta’s train of thought. “Oh hey….mom, are you driving through a tunnel? I can’t really hear you that well,” he said, still not sure as to what Britta was getting at.

“Is Annie in the room with you?”

He looked over, to see Annie popcorn in hand, looking over at him inquisitively. 

“Yes?”

“You need to come here, it’s an emergency. We can’t talk about this over the phone.”

Okay, seriously. What the hell was going on. “What’s this about…mom?”

“It’s about Annie. Just trust me and get over here okay? I’m in the parking garage of the downtown Mall, 3rd floor by the elevator.”

He hesitated. He was 99% sure this was not going to be worth the drive. But then again, what if it was? Even though Britta had her relapses into frivolous tasks, she’d been a lot more serious a person recently. And if it wasn’t worth his time, he could hold it over her head and guilt a meal out of her or something. 

“I’ll be right there”, he finally answered and hung up the phone.

“Is everything all right?” Annie asked.

Jeff looked up. “Huh? Yeah. My mom’s got a flat, she got towed but I have to go pick her up. I’ll see you later though, okay?”

He kissed her before getting off the couch and grabbing his coat.

“Yeah, sounds good. Are we still on for Captain America tomorrow?” She asked. 

“You bet. And yes, Abed. You and Rachel can come too,” he said before Abed had a chance to interject about being left out. 15 minutes later, he pulled into the garage to see Britta leaning against a pillar. You can’t be serious, he thought as he got a load of what she was wearing. She had a trench coat. Like, an actual trench coat. Aviators covered her eyes, and a fedora covered her blond curls, the rest of which were pulled into a pony tail. He got out of the car, still utterly lost as to what was going on.

“Hey Michael Jackson, welcome back from the dead,” he said sarcastically. 

“If I may ask though, why go blonde?”

She ignored the joke. Sore loser. 

“Okay, at least tell me why we’re meeting here of all places?”

“I was doing some late night shopping…”

“In a trench coat?”

“I thought it was going to be colder out…”

“And the fedora and shades?”

“I thought it was gonna be sunnier out!”

“Britta it’s 10 at night.”

“I thought you were gonna come earlier!”

“You called me at 9:30!”

“Oh so what are we, the time police now?”

She took a second to recompose. 

“Did anyone follow you?” She inquired.

“Y’know, I thought someone was but then I realized I’m not in a Jason Bourne movie,” he quipped.

“Shut up, jackass. I got some information you might want.”

“About Annie? What information about Annie do you possibly have that couldn’t be texted?”

She shrugged and held up a Nokia phone that looked like it came in a happy meal. “My phone’s low on minutes, okay?” 

He chuckled. “Must’ve been hard to call me, all the way from 2008.” 

“Yeah, whatever jerk, my iPhone cracked and I haven’t had time to shop for a new one. So do you want to know the secret, or not?”

“Sure.”

She pulled out a paper, handing it over to Jeff.

“What is this?”

“It’s a photocopy of one of the pages in Annie’s wedding planner.”

“So, what’s so special about it?” He asked. 

“We went over ideas for hours this morning over brunch. She must’ve spent fifteen minutes on each page, discussing ideal color schemes, flower arrangements, seating charts, the whole shebang. But…here’s where it gets interesting,” Britta pointed out.

“Oh, so her ‘wedding jam fun time’ playlist wasn’t interesting?”

She shot him a look that could kill. 

“Are you gonna take this seriously or not, Jeff?”

“Yeah, sure. Where are you going with all this?”

“Glad you asked. So, she spent 10 minutes on each page, explaining my ear off. But we got to one page, a page with a single sheet of notebook paper folded into a square and stapled to the middle, and she skipped it. Didn’t even acknowledge it. As a matter of fact, I’ve never seen a person flip a page quicker. And I went to a public high school with a lot of insecure dudes and textbooks with more penises than words in them. Point is, whatever was on that piece of paper, it was important enough to write down but too embarrassing for me to see.”

Okay, he had to admit he was a tiny bit interested. 

“So, she wanted no one to see it. We shouldn’t invade her privacy.”

“You two are getting married, there’s no such thing as privacy anymore,” She countered. “And if she wanted it to be secret, she should’ve written it in a diary with a lock on it like I used to-“

Jeff looked up at her, one eyebrow raised. 

“Like I used to…totally not do growing up, because those things are for losers,” she finished.

“Good save.”

“So, naturally, when she went to the bathroom I went back to the page to read what the note said. Only after I unfolded it, I didn’t have time to read it. Damn that woman pees quick.”

“Tell me about it.”

“So I took a picture. It was kinda blurry, because…” She held up her phone, “look at this thing. It couldn’t take a picture of the sun on a clear day.”

“Yeah but you’re also monumentally bad at picture taking.”

“That’s beside the point. Anyhow, I took it to Buzz who had an old cop friend see what he could do to enhance the image. Here’s what we got.”

Jeff grabbed the picture, pulling his own phone out and using the flashlight app to illuminate the paper. 

February 16, 2006.  
Dear dad: ten years ago today, you left us. I’ll never blame you for the way things worked out with mom. Sometimes things just happen, I guess. I don’t even blame you for leaving. I wish you’d stayed, but I love you too much to blame you. You needed a fresh start, I guess. This doesn’t mean I’m not sad about it though. I wanted you to be at my birthdays. I wanted you to go to parent teacher conferences and get angry with me when you saw I had a C in algebra. I wanted you to lecture me about boys, like the dads of most normal teenage girls. I wanted you to see me graduate. And I wanted you to be at my wedding, walking me down the aisle. But I realize now that it would be selfish of me to drag you out of your new life, wherever that is, just to remind you of how crappy your old one was. Sometimes I wish I had a fresh start like you. I guess we all can’t be that lucky.  
Sincerely;  
Your little Annie

Whoa, he thought. He was not expecting this. Britta must have noticed his speechlessness. “Deep, right?”

“Very,” he said, unsure what to truly think of it. “Her dad is the only person in her family she’s never talked to me about. I know her family in general is a touchy subject, but she’s somewhat made peace with her mom and brother. Hell, we even had dinner together once. Granted it was a slightly awkward dinner, but it happened.”

Britta peered over. “And it looks like she meant to send it to her dad. But she either didn’t have the means or the guts to send it. Which one though?”

Jeff looked up and raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know. But I know someone who will.”

“Who?”

“Abed.”

“We’re talking about the same Abed, right?”

“No, Britta. I’m serious. Abed’s a master at discretely gathering information. So good even he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it. Remember how much I knew about you the first  
time we talked?” 

“Yeah?”

“All that information came from Abed’s thirty second conversation with you about a pen,”

Britta’s eyebrows raised in surprise. “You’re kidding. I don’t even remember telling him that stuff!”

“Exactly!” Jeff said. “If Annie’s told anyone anything about her dad, she’s told him. And she probably didn’t even realize she did it. Think about it: they’ve had a lot of face time,  
cuz they’re roommates. And for a year, they were the only two living in that place. Look what Abed got on you with just thirty seconds of small talk.”

“Good point, Winger. But how do we get him down here?”

Jeff grinned slyly. “How do you get Abed to do anything?”  
\-----------------------------  
Abed sat in the family room with Annie on the other side of the couch as A New Hope concluded. He always appreciated Lucas’s filmmaking technique with the first movie. The original Star Wars was the perfect cocktail of a movie, equally paying homage and satirizing Spaghetti Westerns and Sci-Fi movies. As a stand-alone flic, it was fantastic. And as part of a series, it was equally compelling. Too bad the quality of his Star Wars films steadily decreased after this one, he thought. It would be interesting, however, to see the direction that J.J. Abrams would go with the next one. The trailer definitely had promise. 

A sigh emulating from Annie caused him to swivel his head, and he tried to read her emotions. She seemed sad. Or troubled. Or confused. Faces weren’t his strong suit.  
“Don’t worry”, he said. “Vader doesn’t die. He survives and comes back in the next one. But there isn’t a death star, which makes it kind of anti-climactic. Although you could argue that the Empire actually is most effective in the fifth movie, and without the help of a death star.”

She smiled faintly. “I know, Abed. I’ve seen Star Wars. That’s not what I’m thinking about, though.”

“Well what are you thinking about?”

“Did it occur to you that Jeff acted a little…strange today when he left?”

Abed thought about it. “You know, now that you mention it there was a weird tone in his voice. It was a couple octaves lower and lined with a little more sarcasm than his voice usually is when he’s calling his mom. It sounded more like the tone he uses with Britta.”  
\-----------------------------  
Annie shifted in her seat a little bit. 

“Britta? Do you think he’s meeting secretly with Britta?”

“Yeah, but I can guarantee it’s not what you think. I have a nose for these things.”

Annie looked at him, a bit confused. “Nose for what?”

“For knowing if and how long people have been sleeping together. You and Jeff, for example…” He looked at Annie closely, raising a finger and wincing slightly. “A week into dating?” He asked.

Damn, she thought to herself as she nodded ever so slightly. He was good. “So you don’t sense that on Jeff or Britta?”

“Not even a little.”

She wasn’t surprised: She trusted Jeff and he trusted her back. But it didn’t hurt to know for sure. She didn’t have any ill will towards Britta anymore or anything. They had hashed it out, and were closer now than they’d ever been. She had total confidence that if they were together right now, it wasn’t doing extramarital things. But…that concerned her even more. Why WOULD they meeting up at this time of night? Unless… wait, was Jeff being secretly consulted about wedding stuff? She KNEW Britta was skeptical of the multi-layered cake! However, she told herself she’d confront them tomorrow night. She had to be up for work early tomorrow, so she decided it wasn’t worth fussing over right now. That and Annie had no idea where she would even start looking for them. She crawled off the couch and onto her feet.

“Well, I’m going to bed. Night, Abed, see you tomorrow.” She had just gotten to the door of her room, when she heard what any other logical girl would have done. She ran into her room, removed all the pens from a coffee mug on her desk, and pressed it against the bedroom door to listen in.  
\-----------------------------  
Abed answered the phone, a blocked number. A deep, gravelly voice filled his ear.

“Hello, Abed.”

“Who is this?”

“That is of no importance. We need to meet. I have something I think you may be interested in.”

“What?” Abed inquired. It didn’t show in his voice, but he could barely contain his excitement. This was beginning to sound like a Bourne movie. 

“The lost season of Inspector Spacetime on DVD with commentary. You know, the one that was never aired, because the inspector died on set mid-season.”

His ears perked. “The missing season? That’s impossible. Only five copies exist on earth, and one of them is locked away in Evidence.”

“Don’t question the methods. Just accept the result,” the deep voice responded. 

Abed nodded. But he also knew how this worked. You gotta give a little to get a little. “What’s the catch?”

“Information. On someone you’re…close to.”

“Where do we meet?”

“15 minutes from now. 3rd level of the downtown mall parking garage, by the elevator entrance. Come alone.”

“See you then” Abed said, hanging up the phone. He grabbed his keys, but doubled back to his room before he left. He had an outfit for this.  
\-----------------------------  
Annie contemplated what she had heard for a second. Abed was meeting Jeff and Britta, she was almost certain. The good news is, it threw the affair idea out the window for sure. Not that she had put any chips in that basket, anyways. But they WERE up to something…and were keeping her out of the loop. She peeked outside her door, and could hear Abed moving around in his room.  
\-----------------------------  
Abed finished changing only to open the door to see Annie standing right in front of the door, bemused expression on her face.

“Hey, buddy. Where ya off to at this hour?”

Abed blinked. “Rachel lost her keys. She needs me to bring over a spare. I’ll be right back.” He slid by her and was out the door before she could ask a follow-up question.  
\-----------------------------  
Her eyes turned to slits as the door shut behind him. She picked up her phone, and called Rachel. 

“Hello?”

“Heyyy Rachel! It’s Annie. By any chance, is Abed coming over right now to drop off a spare key?”

“No, not that I’m aware of. Why?”

“Cuz… that’s where he said he was going. I think he’s meeting up with Jeff and Britta right now. I think they’re scheming…”

There was hesitation on the other end, before Rachel spoke up: “Wait… was he wearing a grey baseball cap and maroon hoodie when he left?”

Annie thought to herself for a second. “Um… yeah?”

“That bastard! He’s doing the parking garage drop off trope without me! Get your binoculars, Annie. I’ll get the coffee and be at your house in ten. We’re going on a stakeout.”

Annie hung up and smiled. That’s what she wanted to hear.  
\-----------------------------  
Twenty minutes later, Jeff and Britta hung around in the shadows, awaiting Abed’s arrival. 

“Do I wanna know why you actually had an app on your phone that deepens your voice?” Britta asked, incredulously. 

“For times like these, Britta. For times like these.”

“I gotta say, pretending this was a movie to get Abed here was a pretty smart move though.”

“Yeah. He might’ve come anyways, but why not throw the kid a bone. He’s stuck in reality for 23 hours a day.” 

“That’s nice of you. And why on Earth do you have a limited limited edition Inspector Spacetime dvd in the trunk of your car?”

“It was supposed to be a birthday present. Duncan’s cousin worked on Inspector Spacetime’s set a few years back. I won it from him in a game of darts.” 

Jeff paused, as his eyes latched onto something in the distance. “Wait, do you see that?” 

Britta peered out from behind the shaded pillar. A skinny, lanky figure with a baseball cap pulled down walked towards them with a stiffness in his body that was signature Abed. Go time.  
\-----------------------------  
Abed walked through the parking garage, eyes peeled for anything suspicious. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the flash of something shiny laminating from the darkness behind a wide pillar; a makeup mirror. He was being signaled. He walked over; putting his hood up and doing the obligatory over-both-shoulders look as he approached it. He walked into the shadows, where two figures stood. One was in a hooded sweatshirt, jeans, and wearing Ray Bans and the other, a girl, was in a trench coat, fedora, and aviators. 

“Hey Jeff, hey Britta. Thanks for doing this, it was fun. Britta, your costume is a little cliché but I’ll let it slide. Jeff, you’re looking good my man.” 

Britta’s face immediately scrunched up, annoyed, while Jeff’s beamed of satisfaction.

“Can we stay in character a few more seconds though? I’ve been waiting for our group to use this Trope for a long time”. Jeff nodded, and pulled a yellow envelope out from behind him, dropping it on the ground. Abed crouched down to pick it up, tearing the paper a little bit. It was enough for him to stick his pinky finger inside to swipe the DVD case with. He put his finger to his tongue, tasting it. 

“It’s legit,” he says as he stood upright again with the package in hand. “Now what can I do for you?” He asked.

“Annie’s dad,” Jeff said. “What has she told you about him?

Abed thought for a second. Immediately, images and past conversations flooded to the forefront of his mind. “There’s not a ton but here’s what I know. She’s mentioned him four times since I’ve known her. During a study break four years ago when you were all in the bath room, I was talking about Forrest Gump. She said she doesn’t watch that movie anymore because people used to say her dad looks just like Lieutenant Dan. The first week we were living together, I was talking about how my dad and mom’s divorce never really affected me the way it did other kids and she said it must be nice, because she hasn’t seen her dad in 15 years and she’s never completely gotten over it. A year ago, she mentioned that the only time she had been out of state was when she was looking for her dad. And just last week, the night of your proposal, after you and I helped carry her upstairs cuz she’d had a few too many free drinks, we talked for a bit on the couch after you left. She said that the proposal was so perfect and she knew the wedding was going to be too. She trailed off so I asked if there was something else on her mind and she said that she wanted to get out. She said, and I quote, ‘I don’t know. I spent 20 years getting the idea of my dad not being at my wedding out of my head, and maybe it’s the fact that I actually have a wedding for him to miss now, or maybe it was the drinks but all of a sudden I can’t get over the fact that someone else is going to have to walk me down the aisle.’ How was that?”

Jeff and Britta were both staring, jaws agap. 

“Guys?” 

They snapped out of it. “Abed, that was…terrific. That’s what we need.”

“Need for what?” Britta asked. 

“I’m going to track her dad down for the wedding,” Jeff said.

“Aw Jeff that’s awesome!” Britta exclaimed. 

Abed nodded in agreement. “Yeah, it’s a great plot for a pre-wedding episode, connecting with her estranged father and bringing him to the wedding. Also, this may be a bad time, but Annie and Rachel followed me here.”

“WHAT?!?!” Jeff and Britta exclaimed in unison. “Why didn’t you tell us???”

He shrugged. “I wanted my surprise. And don’t worry; this is all going according to plan.”

Jeff panicked. “Why, what-“ 

“Well, Annie was suspicious when you and I both left under odd circumstances an hour apart and probably listened in on our phone conversation through the door. I figured whatever was happening was important, and Annie was already too suspicious to believe whatever I offered as an excuse. I told her I was going to Rachel’s. I knew she’d call Rachel to confirm, and when Rachel found out I had done the parking lot drop off trope without her, she probably suggested they stake out the only parking garage in Greendale. They’re right around the corner, actually. I can see Rachel’s face kind of. And they’ve definitely got either Coffee or street meat with them to make this feel more legit. Rachel’s got a Prius which is why we probably didn’t hear it roll up. Don’t look for them, though. That will let them know we’re on to them.”

“Wait, this is so bad!” Britta exclaimed. “Annie probably thinks that Jeff and I were-“

“No she doesn’t. She trusts Jeff.”

Jeff looked relieved, while Britta took offense. 

“Trusts JEFF? Wow, that’s so representative of our culture. The former female flame is the home wrecker…”

“Ugh you’re the worst!” Abed and Jeff say in unison. 

“Fine, but how do we explain what we’re doing here? We can’t tell her it’s about her dad, and if she’s ruled out an affair she probably thinks we’re going behind her back on some  
big wedding decision.”

Abed was already on it, however. “We have to nip her suspicion in the bud right now, which is why I lured her here. It’ll buy us some time. Better to explain ourselves now than later.”

Britta and Jeff nodded and looked at each other. “Okay, but how do we get them here without giving away anything?”

Abed smirked and held up his phone, “Reinforcements.” 

From around the corner, they heard muffled shrieks, and the sound of car doors opening. Annie and Rachel ran from the car and around the corner towards them, their shirts dripping wet with brown liquid.

“They went with coffee” Abed confirmed unnecessarily. “Oh, and let me and Troy do the talking. He knows what’s up. You’ll know when to fill in.”

Jeff looked around. “Wait, Troy’s here?”

Behind them, someone in a scream costume chased after them. Annie ran and jumped into Jeff’s arms as Rachel did the same with Abed. The guy in the scream costume ran up to them, and removed the mask. Troy. 

“Thanks for getting here as quick as you could,” Abed said to his best friend. He turned to the rest of them. “I texted him as soon as I knew I had a tail.”

“Wait, you have a tail?” Troy asked, incredulously. 

“It’s an expression,” Jeff explained. 

Annie and Rachel shared a worried look. They had thought they were being sneaky, he surmised. 

“You’re a genius, Abed” said Jeff, gratefully. Abed thanked him, and then turned to Annie. “Sorry if us leaving worried you. Britta was just giving me my early birthday present and brought Jeff in on it last minute when she found out they’re both going to be gone for the real one.”

“Yeah, I’m gonna have to go back to Denver”, she said. Annie looked over at Jeff, but Troy cut in before Annie had a chance to explain why Jeff was leaving on such short notice and why he hadn’t told her. 

“And Jeff’s flying out with me to D.C. to help me sift through the boring legal stuff I don’t understand regarding the inheritance in Pierce’s will,” Troy added.

“You are?” asked Annie.  
\-----------------------------  
Troy gave Jeff the “just go with it” look. 

“Uhh, yeah. Just found out last night. Was gonna tell you today, but Troy must’ve let Britta know my plans before I got a chance. I didn’t even know we were doing this until she called me while we were watching Star Wars. I would’ve told you but Abed was in the room with us and frankly I didn’t know what was going on til I got here. I’m sorry, I should’ve let you know what I was doing.”

Annie took a second to process all of it, but didn’t seem too phased. “It’s okay,” she told him as the two leaned into a kiss. “You were just trying to help out your friend. What kind of fiancee if i was mad at you for that?”

Abed’s apology to Rachel was even easier. All he had to do was pretend he was in one of those movies where the protagonist HAD to keep his girlfriend in the dark out of fear that letting her know would put her and “the kids” in danger and he loved them too much for that. She was sold. 

The group walked towards their cars, and for a split second, when Annie and Rachel weren’t looking, the four shared a quick nod. Annie had bought it. The plan was in motion. A week after this one, Jeff Troy and Britta would depart in search of Annie’s estranged father. This had been the easy part. The real challenge was yet to come.


	3. The Mission: Vol. 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jeff, Troy, and Britta take the first step in their journey to find Annie's Dad. With no leads to follow, they visit Annie's mother in an attempt to pick up even the slightest of scents. Lynda Carter plays Annie's mom, so maybe Google her before reading.

Annie dropped Jeff and Troy off at the train station at 9 in the morning, which in turn would “take them to the airport”. At 9:30, Britta picked them up from the same train station. They packed into her car and hit the road for the only real lead they had on how to find Annie’s dad: her mother. 

“Does she know we’re coming?” Britta asked.

“No, I was kinda hoping we’d pop in as a surprise. I was afraid if I told her we were coming, she might’ve told Annie even if we told her not to.” 

“Way to trust”, said Troy sarcastically. 

“What?! She’s old, things slip out sometimes.”

“Jeff…you do realize you’re just about as close in age to Annie as you are to her mom…right?”

He stopped and thought about it. “Well, now I can’t un-realize it.”

They pulled up to the house around 30 minutes later. The trio climbed up the four step concrete stairwell up to the door, rang the doorbell and waited.

Britta raised an important question while they waited. “What if she’s not home?”

“Yeah, like a 60 year old woman is going to be that busy on a Tuesday morning.”

He heard faint footsteps coming from the house, and an even fainter “I’ll get it!”

The footsteps sounded familiar, he though. So did the voice…and wait, if her mom was alone, who was she calling out to?

Troy tapped Jeff on the shoulder at that exact moment and pointed down the street a couple houses. “Hey…correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that…Annie’s car?”

The footsteps got closer. “Dammit, it is. Britta, improvise!” 

Britta tried to object, but it was too late. Jeff grabbed Troy and leapt over the porch’s railing into the brush a couple feet below. They immediately hit the woodchips, letting out a slight “oof” before curling around the base of their respective bush to avoid detection. He could hear the door opening, and prayed to God Britta drew enough attention to herself to keep Annie focused on her and not the bushes with feet sticking out from underneath them.  
\-----------------------------  
Annie reached the door, unlocking and unlatching the various apparatuses installed to keep the door shut. Comes with the territory of being an old single woman, she thought. Her mom had said she wasn’t expecting anyone else at this hour, so Annie opened the door expecting to see a delivery guy or mailman. Instead she got maybe the last person she was expecting.

“Britta??”  
\-----------------------------  
“Britta, what are you doing here?” Annie’s tone was pretty astonished. 

Britta had to think quickly. More importantly, she had to use all the willpower in her body to not look down at the Jeff Winger-shaped bush below for a lifeline. “Uh……” she started, buying herself a few seconds as her mind scrambled for some sort of alibi for her being at her mom’s house. Both she and Annie’s mom lived in Denver, so at least she was safe in that aspect. The rest? She was clueless.  
“Can I come inside, I’ll explain.” Smooth, Britta. Annie looked at her like she had grown a second head, but her good nature took over eventually and she slowly nodded. 

“…Sure, come on in.”

“Thanks,” at least now they were inside and Jeff and Troy were safe for the time being. A woman in what looked like her late 50s or early 60s approached from the other room, the kitchen. 

“Oh, Annie who is this??” She inquired. 

“Just…a friend from school!”

Britta did a half wave and smiled, dumbly. Okay, stop waving you’re not the queen of England, she thought. But it was too late. She had committed. Ugh, I really am the worst, she thought to herself. At least say something! She finally conjured up a greeting and introduction, shaking Annie’s mother’s hand. 

“Would you like to join us for brunch?” Her mother asked. “At the very least, let me get you a coffee.”

“No thank you, water is fine.” Her throat had gone dry: she needed this. 

Annie turned to her with an exasperated expression when her mom left to retrieve Britta’s drink.

“Britta, explain yourself. What are you doing here? And how do you know where my mom lives?”

Britta was caught red handed. She didn’t want to lie anymore, but the only way to keep Jeff out of it as of now was telling the truth, or at least part of it.  
\-----------------------------  
“…I’ve been trying to find your dad for the wedding,” she confessed. “Jeff gave me the address.”

A whole range of emotions swept over Annie as Britta answered her. Almost 20 years’ worth of emotion, to be exact. If Britta being here was the last thing she expected, her being here to get clues on Annie’s estranged father was so far out in left field it was probably a foul ball. That’s a sports analogy that makes sense, right? Then again, WAS Britta’s snooping around about Annie’s dad really that random? She thought back to the day they went through her marriage scrapbook, and the ensuing events of that night. 

“Britta…did you read the letter I wrote to my dad?”

Britta’s face was all the evidence Annie needed to know she was hiding something. She must’ve seen the look of certainty on Annie’s face because she didn’t even deny it.

“Okay yeah, I did. But you know I’m a nosy person and I was intrigued that there was even a single page in your scrapbook that you didn’t want to talk about in detail!”

“And is Jeff in on this?”  
\-----------------------------  
Crap, Britta thought. She didn’t want to expose their plan completely, but she also didn’t have it in her to lie to Annie about Jeff. Speaking of Jeff, what would HE say in this situation? He’d deceptively package the truth, she thought. 

“Jeff and Troy are working at it from where they are, last time I checked.” She had to fight the image of Jeff laying hiding in bushes to keep from laughing. 

“So like from DC once they’re done with the inheritance stuff?”

Once again, she couldn’t lie. 

“I’d imagine.” Britta Perry, you sly dog. 

Out of nowhere, Annie stepped forward and bear-hugged her. Her grip and squeeze was much stronger than one would expect from a girl of her petite frame. Britta had to tap her on the shoulder a couple times to get Annie to let go before she suffocated. 

“Britta, you don’t know how much this means to me.”

Annie let go...eventually, and held Britta at a shouler’s length. “But you’re not going to find him, so you can tell Jeff and Troy not to bother.”

Britta was confused. “Why?”

Annie sighed. “Because, I spent my whole summer before freshman year searching for him. I spent all the money I had saved up for college on that trip since I was already planning on attending Greendale. I followed every scent; left no stone unturned, and checked every loose end. My dad’s far gone by now. And I’m not going to let you guys waste three months of your lives doing the same. My dad’s never coming back, and I’ve accepted it. That doesn’t mean I would reject him if he showed up one day, heck I’d probably cry like a school girl and hug him til his ribs broke.”

I don’t doubt it, Britta thought while subtly massaging her shoulder after being on the receiving end of said rib crushing hug. 

Annie began to tear up. “I do miss him. And it will be a bit of a sour note, him not being at my wedding. But you know what else I get to do at my wedding? Bring another man I love into my life forever; someone who’s all too familiar with the aspect of their father leaving. Someone who will one day become the best dad in the world. I’m so grateful that I get to marry Jeff, and it’s a dream come true. Nothing on earth could possibly ruin that. So tell Jeff not to worry about it. Having one man I love at my wedding should be more than enough.”

Britta found herself speechless for the umpteenth time today.

Annie’s mom came in with a glass of water for Britta during all of this. “Britta, I have your wat- What’s wrong???”

Annie did her best to hold back tears, but it was too late. Annie grabbed her purse, and kissed her mom goodbye. “Nothing, mom. I just…need to go, that’s all. Thank you for the wonderful breakfast. And Britta, thank you for trying, I really do appreciate it but I need to go.”

And just like that, Annie was out the door.  
\-----------------------------  
They could hear commotion from inside the house, but couldn’t really do anything about it from their spot in the bushes. He was in no position to text Britta, but he really wanted to know what was going on. A minute later, Annie burst from the house and headed towards her car. He couldn't see her, but he knew it was Annie. He could hear the sniffling. His first reaction was to and get up and comfort her even if it meant blowing the operation, because to Jeff Winger there was nothing worse in the world than an upset Annie Edison. Before he could get up though, Troy grabbed his leg. 

“We gotta let her go, man. Think about the mission!”

He was right. As painful as it may have been, Annie had to be left alone. He could hear the car’s ignition followed by it driving away. Another pair of footsteps could be heard from the house, as someone else came onto the porch. 

“Okay, get up you two,” Britta relayed down to them; “She’s gone.” They both stood up to see Britta and Annie’s mom on the porch, a look of utter confusion across the face of Ms. Edison. 

“What on God’s Earth… ”

“Miss Edison, we can explain. This is my friend Tr-“

“I know who he is,” Ms. Edison said succinctly. For a second Jeff forgot that Troy and Annie went to high school together. And that Troy had inadvertently caused Annie to have a mental breakdown. He could tell that it had slipped Troy’s mind too: His face was priceless. When they got inside, they told her about the unsent letter to her father, the conversations Annie had with Abed and Britta, and their plan to find Annie’s dad. They said they were sorry, and that the search was a fool’s errand to begin with. For a few seconds, the house was completely quiet. Then the elder Edison spoke up:

“Actually, I think I can help you.” The three all shared a look that was as much hopeful as it was genuinely surprised. Ms. Edison retreated to her bedroom, and emerged a few minutes later with a crumpled envelope.

“After Annie’s father and I got divorced and I won the right to full custody, he gave me this envelope. It’s an address. He said if Annie ever wanted to reach him, this is where he would be. Annie never knew about it.”

Jeff’s eyes widened. “Why would you keep this a secret from her?”

She sat back in her chair, in disgust of herself. “She has never brought him up to me once. Not since the divorce, at least. She was six when he left, and to be honest I never thought she remembered him. Looking back, I always thought she didn’t bring him up because I was doing a good enough job raising her. But, the truth is, I didn’t. I always wanted to be better than him in her eyes, and I thought if I was her only parent, I would be. But I wasn’t a good parent. And there’s a difference between a good parent and a parent. I thought that’s why she never asked about him, because I was doing such a good job and she had simply forgotten. But she was just trying to protect me. Maybe it was a self-defense mechanism, or just denial but deep down I knew that she really did miss him, even if she never said it. I just never wanted to admit it to myself. I failed my little Annie when I kicked her out of the house because she wanted to confront her addiction, when I cut her off from our money, and when I denied her the chance to reconnect with her own father.”

A single tear trails down her cheek, as Britta moves over to comfort her. Troy breaks down unexpectedly too. 

“All these lies and deception! Can’t we just love each other??”

Okay, maybe not that unexpectedly. 

Annie’s mother handed Jeff the envelope. “I can’t begin to right the ways I wronged Annie. But hopefully this is a start.”

“Thank you, so very much Ms. Edison.”

“Please, call me Marie. Marie Edison. And don’t worry. I’ll keep this a secret.”

They exchange hugs with the Elder Edison, and the group departs. On the way, Britta catches Jeff and Troy up on what she told Annie. Annie knows that the three of them were in some way shape or form trying to find her dad, and that they had seen the letter. But that was it. As far as Annie was concerned, they had given up their search. 

“Just don’t be surprised if Annie texts you saying she knows what happened.”

Jeff opens the envelope: the paper inside is an address in Arizona. Britta drops the two off at the airport, for real this time, and Jeff and Troy board the 2 hour flight to Phoenix. It’s all that stands in the way of Jeff and Annie's father.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pixar Rules of Storytelling: #9: When you're stuck, make a list of what WOULDN'T happen next. Lots of times the material to get you unstuck will show up
> 
> This chapter was actually one of the hardest to write. In the original, Annie was not in the scene and it was just Jeff, Troy, and Britta at Annie's Mother's house. I had to re-write it maybe 5 times because the dialogue between the three and Annie's mom was just going no where. Then a friend showed me the Pixar quote above. And when i started up again, the first thing to pop into my mind was "wouldn't it be funny if Annie opened the door?" It surprised me, so i figured it'd probably surprise the characters even more. Plus, it gives Annie more face time in this story, which is never a bad thing. Hopefully it worked out and hopefully you guys enjoyed! Thanks for reading!


	4. The Mission: Vol. 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The hunt for Annie's father concludes but not without the trail almost going cold first.

Part III. The Mission, Vol. 2.

Okay, so maybe it had been a little harder than they anticipated. There was more than one time where the trail was mere inches from going cold. The address that Annie’s dad had left was an apartment that, according to the landlord, had been inhabited by a young Asian couple for the better part of a decade. They caught a break though, because the landlord’s dad used to run the building back in the day. He remembered that the previous tenant was a single white male, and he was kind enough to go through the records for Jeff and Troy. In it they found a new address that the old tenant had given to him to reroute any mail that was sent to the old place. 

That address had taken them to Meso, a suburb of Phoenix. It was another dead end. A city sticker on the window told them the house had been deemed unsafe by the city and was due for destruction. In a desperate attempt to keep the trail alive, they had gone around the block asking neighbors about the people who lived in the house before it was condemned. An old couple across the street revealed that until a year ago it was occupied by a married couple who had raised two children that were now in their late teens. The mother had sadly been killed in a hit and run two years earlier, and the house’s condition began to deteriorate after that. The grass got long and unkempt; the house took water damage during storms, and the infrastructure was declared unsafe by city planners soon after. 

Where the dad and his two children had moved to, nobody knew. The trail had gone cold, and they were running out of time: Their flight back to Denver was scheduled two days from now. So now, they were sitting in some Arizona burger joint, dejectedly eating their greasy meals that probably equaled a year of Jeff's carb intake. Jeff stared at his phone while chewing on a curly fry when Troy banged the table, scaring the crap out of him.

"Troy, what the hell?" Jeff started. 

“Sorry, I got excited. I think I might have an idea, though.”

“There’s a first time for everything,” Jeff quipped without lifting his eyes from his phone.

“No, seriously. So let’s say the guy in that house really was Annie’s dad and he started a new life with a new person and all that. Just humor me. And let's say he fell off the wagon after she died. Maybe he had an alcohol or like a drug problem?”

Jeff thought about it. It made sense. Given Annie’s past problems with Adderall, it wasn’t a stretch to say that an addictive personality could be a running theme in their family. 

“And Annie probably gets her fighting personality from her dad. Her mom’s the one who wanted to ignore the addiction. That could mean maybe HE tried to confront his addiction too,” Jeff added. He exited out of Candy Crush and googled rehab clinics in the metropolitan Phoenix area.

There was only one rehab clinic in the area of Meso, on the outskirts of town. Unfortunately for the community college sleuths there was a strict doctor-patient confidentiality rule according to the website. 

“So what do we do?” Troy asked.

Jeff flashed the classic Winger grin. “Troy, have you ever wanted to play Lawyer?”  
\-----------------------------  
The young secretary sat in the lobby, typing away. It was a long day, having to input the information of all new patients, and filing away the information of patients released. She  
checked her watch. 45 minutes til lunch. While she was staring at her watch, the lobby doors opposite her desk burst open. In walked two men in suits, one was a tall Seacrest-looking man, with a grim smile and slitted eyes filled with determination. Next to him was a guy of African American descent with a perfect poker face. The two approached the desk as Seacrest spoke up. 

“Hello ma’am, my name is Jeffrey Tango, this is Marcus Cash. We’re defense attorneys; we need information on a client of ours; he’s a former patient.”

Uh oh, she thought. This seemed serious. And it seemed way above her pay grade.

“Um..” she stammered. “Sorry, we don’t give out information like that, it’s against our confidentiality agreement.” 

The man pulled a paper out of his briefcase. “Our client has waived his confidentiality agreement with your clinic for the time being. Now, please. He’s being convicted of a hit and run that happened while he was in this freak house. He was ashamed of being in rehab and never told anyone he was here, so there's no way to prove he was not at the scene of the crime. He has no paperwork proving of his own proving he was here, the only thing proving his innocence is going to come from inside these walls. Now, if you would like to help a man get wrongfully convicted of a crime he didn’t commit because he was too ashamed to tell people he was in rehab, by all means keep stonewalling us. But we’re gonna get it anyways.”

The black lawyer broke off and pulled out his phone. He started dialing.She panicked;

“What is he doing?”

The tall lawyer smirked. “He’s calling our buddy, the judge. Tell me, darling. Have you ever been subpoenaed?”

“Wait! Uh, maybe I can help.” She grabbed the paper; it was an entire page full of fine print with a signature at the bottom. She couldn’t read half the stuff on the page, and wouldn’t be able to understand if she could. Her experience with legal stuff was limited to whatever episode of Law and Order she had watched the day before. But she also knew she needed this job, and getting the clinic involved in a manslaughter case couldn’t be good for job security.

She pretended to read the paper for a few seconds anyways, just to make her seem smarter. “What was the last name of your client again?”

“Edison?”

She typed quickly into her computer, “Sorry, it says no search results. Is there another name he or she could go by?”  
\-----------------------------  
Jeff’s face fell. What? No search results? How? Everything had gone so perfect up until this point; The nonsensical threatening legal talk that sounded serious in the eyes of a 20something secretary, the “calling the judge” threat, the printed iTunes user agreements with a signature-shaped scribble at the bottom, all of it. There was a reason they had done this today and not yesterday, when the secretary was a 50 year old woman who by the looks of it took no crap from anyone. They had done everything right, and it was not going to be in vain. Not on Jeff Winger's watch. He smiled at the secretary as he grabbed Troy by the arm. “Give us a moment please. Cash, sidebar?”

The two walked to the far corner of the room with their backs turned to the secretary. 

“No results for Edison. What do we do?”

Troy nodded, deep in thought. “We could get a warrant.”

Jeff hit him over the back of the head. “Ow!”

“We’re not real lawyers, remember?”

“That's right... My briefcase is filled with mall flyers and books from the hotel nightstand.”

For the first time all trip, Jeff was in a panic. "This can’t be happening. We n’t have come this far to be stopped here. Not when they were so close."

Troy nodded, frustrated as well. “Sorry, man. I must've just been off base with the rehab thing. By the way, i was thinking about this earlier...Did you find it weird that her and her mom still go by his last name? You’d think she would’ve switched back after the divorce. My mom switched back to her maiden name after my parents got divorced. I kept Barnes though, because Troy Aikman doesn’t really sound like a football player name..." 

Jeff looked at him. “You never really watched football, did you?”

“Wait, they show football on TV?”

“Never mind. But I think you gave me an idea. What if Edison IS Marie’s maiden name? I mean, it makes sense, their dad left when she was so young; they probably started using Marie's maiden name after the divorce. But how do we find out his real last name?”

“Call her mom?”  
\-----------------------------  
The two approached the desk once more, the tall one in front of the other. He put his hand on the desk: “Sorry about the wait, turns out he goes by a different name now than he did back then. Can you look up the last name “Jensen”? 

She obliged, and alas there were two results. “Kwame or Thomas Jensen?” The two looked at each other, and spoke at once. The White one said Thomas, and the black one said Kwame. The Black one seemed to immediately regret it though, likely because of the glare the tall one gave him. 

“It’s Thomas,” he said. She turned the screen of her computer towards him, and he studied it closely before smiling warmly. 

“Thank you so much. Is there any chance you could print this out for us?”  
\-----------------------------  
There were two addresses on Thomas Jensen’s general information sheet. One was the damned house with the overgrown lawn. The other was an apartment complex in Tucson, two hours away. 

The duo parked on the street, putting in a couple hours’ worth of quarters into the machine. They stood outside the complex, staring at his apartment number (4B) for what felt like an eternity. Jeff remembered how hard it had been to see his father after all those years. And for some reason, this was harder. 

“What if she doesn’t want this?” Jeff thought aloud. “What If this ruins the wedding? What if-“ Before he could finish, Troy clicked 4B.

He shot him a “What the hell” look, as they sat in silence on the step. 

“She does. And at the very least, HE deserves to know how his daughter is doing. This is as much for him now as it is for her.” Rare serious words from Troy Barnes. 

The speaker on the apartment’s intercom came to life. “Hello? Can I help you? Am I in trouble?” Jeff noticed the camera looking down at them and realized Troy and him were still wearing suits. “No, Mr. Jensen. Sorry for the suits, we just came from something. I just thought we should meet. My name is Jeff Winger and I’m marrying your daughter.” There was quiet on the other end for a few seconds, then;

“You’re marrying Tricia? She’s at Marquette right now!”

Whoops, he thought. “Sorry, sir. Allow me to specify. I’m marrying your OTHER daughter.”

There was silence once again, followed by what sounded like a very choked up man saying “….Annie? My little Annie?” 

“Yeah,” Troy piped up. “And she used to have a crush on me in high school. I was kinda the coolest…” Jeff turned to him. “Read the room, Troy.”

“What room? We’re standing outside.”

The door buzzed, meaning Thomas had let them up. They got to the door, and a man with salt-and-pepper grey hair and bearing a striking resemblance to Gary Sinise opened up. Before Jeff could say a word, the man reached out and hugged him. Jeff awkwardly patted him on the back, not really knowing how to hug a stranger overcome with emotion like this. After a minute or two, Troy broke the silence. “Imma go watch some TV”, he said as he slid by the embrace and into the family room. Thomas eventually let go of Jeff, as he held him by his shoulders and looked up at him.

“Sorry…do you wanna join your friend inside?”

The two went into the apartment, which was around the size of Jeff’s. They left Troy in the family room, and went into the kitchen. Jeff took a seat at the table, as Thomas went into the liquor cabinet. “Drink?”

“Scotch neat, if you have it.”

He nodded, poured two glasses, and sat down. The look on his face said he didn’t even know where to begin. Jeff saved him the trouble and started. 

“Mr. Jenson,”

“Please, Tom.”

“Okay. Tom… My friend and I are here because we want you to come to the wedding.” He pulled out an invitation, and slid it across the table. Tom looked at it, and he could see the man’s head spinning. 

“Why though?” He asked, laughing a little in what seemed to be out of disbelief. “We haven’t talked in twenty years. I’d assume she wants nothing to do with me. And if we’re being hoenst, she has every right to.” 

Jeff took a sip of his drink. “She doesn’t talk about you very much, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t think about you.”

“What do you mean?” 

Jeff explained everything to his soon to be father in law; How she had mentioned him in passing only four times to their human recording device friend, how she had written him a note on her 16th birthday but never knew where to send it, how she had spent an entire summer before college looking for him. He explained how her mother promised to give Annie the address if Annie had ever brought him up, and also how Annie never did because she didn’t want to hurt her mom. He explained the close call at Marie’s house and she had left to be alone. Tom was taking it all in and Jeff didn’t want to pile on. He decided to finish on a personal note.

“Sir, I went nearly thirty years without seeing my dad, and I didn’t want to see him. But either way, seeing him gave me a kind of closure I needed. Annie isn’t like me. She has faith in people, which is a big reason why I love her so much. She wants to know you. She doesn’t blame you for anything like I blamed by dad. But she’s still hurting. She may not tell anyone, but the signs are there. You leaving is something she’s never recovered from. And no matter what she tells us, she would want nothing more than to see you at her wedding and back in her life.

“I haven’t heard Annie’s name in so long…” he admitted to Jeff. “I think about her every day, though. How incredibly strong a person she was, especially for a little five year old. She used to hug my leg when I came back from work; she wasn’t even up to my waist. But I didn’t deserve her. Drinking cost me a job and my marriage, as well as my kids. Rightfully so. But I told Marie if by any chance Annie ever wanted to reconnect, I would. But…she never did, and I thought it was because she hated me. I always wanted to come back to her, but the more time that went by the harder it was to do. Eventually, it became impossible. I cowered away from it for so long. I met another girl, and I decided it was time to stop living in the past. I got remarried, and not thinking about my kids was easy for a few years, but then my wife died and I fell off the wagon again. And I started thinking about them again. I’m fine now; hell I can even handle a drink or two. Kids are both at college, and I’m making enough to support them. But all this time alone makes it easy to remember the two kids I left behind. I’m just afraid it’s too late.”

“With all due respect, I met my dad when I was 38. It’s never too late.”

Tom stared as his drink, swirling it around and looked back up at Jeff. “I guess you’re right. Okay, you can count me in. I’ll be there.”

Jeff sighed, relieved. He shot off a quick text to Britta under the table; Cat is in the bag. Dad is in. 

Tom took a sip of his scotch, then gestured to Jeff. “So tell me about you two, how did you meet?” 

Jeff shared the story. The debate kiss, the Model UN and Borchert’s Lab, the fateful day at the park, all of it. A few minutes in, Troy wandered into the room, and the two shared the stories of how Jeff and Annie slowly went from study partners to friends and eventually more than that while Troy offered up some Annie stories from when they were little (Apparently Troy and Annie had just recently realized that they gone to grammar school together for two years but hadn't realized it until a few weeks ago.) The three drank, laughed, and had a good time. Jeff showed him a picture of his daughter, all grown up 20 years later. Tom ordered a pizza, and Jeff and Troy crashed on his couch that night. 

The next morning they thanked Tom for having them and were off to the airport after exchanging numbers. They arrived back in Colorado that afternoon, claiming their flight to Denver had been delayed so instead they were taking a connect flight from DC to Tucson and then to Denver. Annie picked them up from the airport, happy to see them both. She hugged Troy and kissed Jeff and they held hands as the three walked out to her car. 

“Britta told me that you guys were trying to dig up some stuff on my dad after you finished with Pierce’s will,” she said as they packed their suitcases into the trunk of her Sedan. 

“Yeah, sorry going behind your back like that but we wanted it to be a surprise.”

“Any luck?”

The two both shook their heads no. “No dice, honey. I’m sorry," he lied. 

Annie’s face looked a shade of disappointment, but she did well to hide it. 

“Thank you for trying, even though it didn’t go as planned. It means a lot.”

Jeff nodded back at Troy from his position in shotgun when Annie wasn't looking. “It’s okay; it was a wild goose chase anyways.”


	5. The Reuinion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaand we're back to the wedding! Thanks guys for reading and kudos/commenting, it means a lot! This was definitely a hard one to write because there was the lack of an Annie crutch for most of it, but hopefully it pays off! Enjoy and stay tuned for more works!

Annie sat in the tent, surrounded by bridesmaids and wedding planners, helping her with her hair and such. Shirley, the maid of honor, was just about melting into a puddle of 

“Aw Annie’s” and “I Can’t Believe this Day is Finally Here!” Rachel held her hand and patted her arm to keep her calm. Britta marched back and forth in her bridesmaid dress, walkie talkie in one hand and cell phone in the other one. She was the General Patton of wedding planners, barking into the walkie and sending off texts at an alarmingly fast rate. Honestly, Annie couldn’t tell who was more a nervous wreck right now; Britta or her. Buzz, who was currently standing guard outside her tent, had agreed to walk her down the aisle since he had been the closest thing she had to a father after Pierce died. Abed had volunteered, but Britta thought he belonged up front with Troy and Jeff. 

“All done with the hair!” she could hear a voice from behind her. “Want to get started on the makeup?”

Before Annie could say yes, Britta dropped her walkie and phone, and lunged out to grab the brush from the poor woman, shouting “NOO!” as she fell to the ground. 

Annie looked down at her in shock. “Britta, what in the hell?”

Rachel helped Britta up as everyone in the tent looked at her, demanding an explanation. 

Britta’s face had gone pale as she held up her hands in an effort to justify her actions. “Just trust me, there’s something that needs to happen before you put your make up on. 

We can’t risk it running and ruining the white dress”, Britta’s face filled with alarm and she covered her mouth. She had evidently said too much. 

“Why would my makeup be running BEFORE the wedding?” Annie was genuinely perplexed by Britta’s sudden outburst, and now Britta's face had gone ghastly white. 

“Nothing, I’ve said too much. Oh hey look, is that the cake?” Britta made an attempt to break but Shirley grabbed her arm and shot her that mom-look. You know, that one that meant Britta better say what the hell was going on or she’d need to manually dislodge one o Shirley’s shoes from inside her dress?  
Britta threw her hands up once again, this time in surrender. “Fine, I guess there’s no hiding it now. Can someone hand me my walkie talkie?” an attendant handed her the radio, and Britta spoke into it. 

“Buzz, the timetable has been moved forward. Send him in.”

Britta’s message had only confused Annie more. Seriously, what the hell was she talking about right now? 

“Britta, send who in?”

It took Britta’s shifty gaze to realize that everyone was looking at the tent flap that Buzz was now holding open. A man in a suit walked in. A man who for some reason looked vaguely familiar… 

Annie’s feet almost gave out on her as she was hit with the sudden realization of who had just walked through the door, a dozen faint memories suddenly flooding the foreground of her brain. 

It was her dad. 

Rachel caught her as she almost fell.

He took a couple steps inside, visibly shaken and perhaps a bit tearful. Annie ran met him halfway, quite tearful herself, and the two embraced in the middle of the tent for what seemed like an eternity. They were laughing, they were crying, and they were everything in between. She had spent 20 years trying to let go, and today she didn’t want to, even when her long estranged father finally spoke up. 

“Annie, dear? I think you have to let go.” 

“Never.” 

“No… seriously, dear? I made a promise walk someone down the aisle today and I can’t do that if she’s wrapped around me.” She laughed, wiping away tears with her pointer fingers. 

“Fine, but you better stay within my line of sight until it’s time to go,” she said in a stern voice, still getting the last few tears out.

“Deal.” She let go, and they stared at each other for a few seconds. God, he looked the exact same as the image of him she’d stored away in her head oh so long ago. 

“Annie Edison, I’ve missed every big moment of your life, and I can never make that up to you. But hopefully being here for this one is a good place to start.” He leaned forward and kissed her cheek. 

Annie’s cheeks turned bright pink as her heart was fluttering. The one thing about her wedding that she had for the longest time accepted was that her dad would never be there. And now he was. She felt elated: No, elated was an understatement. For once in her life, she couldn’t find the right word to describe something. She looked around the crowded tent, trying to find something as Rachel led her back to her chair for makeup. 

She wiped away the last of the tears on a hand kerchief given to her by Britta, looking for something to say to the woman who she now realized had put this all together. “Good call on holding off the makeup, Britta. And thank you for finding him.” was the only thing she could think of. 

“Don’t mention it. And I’m not the one you should be thanking.” Britta motioned outside, to where the stage would be had their tent not been in the way. 

They all stood as she made her way from the tent to the aisle. An organist played the classic “Here comes the bride” hymn as she and her dad made their way up front. She could feel every pair of eyes in the place staring at her, “aww”ing over the sight of her and her dad. And she loved it. She loved everyone here. But most of all, she loved the man   
standing at the end of the aisle. Because as they were all staring at her, she was staring at him. He was front and Center, in his tuxedo, flashing a grin that looked half subtle winger, half something completely new. But it was a smile she could definitely get used to.

He couldn’t get over how she beamed in her dress. She wasn’t pretty. She was drop-dead gorgeous. She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. And next to her was the man he had found, her estranged father of nearly twenty years. Was he worried that his arrival would take away from the big day? Meh, he’d risk it. Off to the side, he could hear Abed mumbling to Troy about how since her dad looked so much like Gary Sinise, he could be the “guest star” of this episode. Annie and her father split ways as they got to the front. He slid into the front aisle to sit next to his former wife, giving Jeff a nod as he found his seat. Annie grinned at him as she approached the altar, a new kind of grin that made him all the happier he chose her. He offered his hand, and she took it as both turned to face the chaplain for the mass: Ben’s rabbi brother. 

“So…” she whispered, motioning back to where Tom was sitting. “Britta said you were to thank for this?”

He smiled, looking forward. “It was a group effort.”

“Sounds like a good story. One that I’ll get to hear on our way to Spain, I presume?”

He held her hand. “Maybe, if you’re nice to me the rest of the day. For now, let’s just live in the moment.”

"I can live with that." He could hear her faintly laughing, followed by an even fainter and more heartfelt “Thank you” as she squeezed his hand.


End file.
